THE ALCATRAZ OPTION

by Jay Begler

  Morales replied: “Any possibility that we can use what she has to develop a super drug?” She answered in minutes. “Called head of R&D and he says, with lots of disclaimers, it’s a definite maybe but they would need about two months to review all the company’s research to get a realistic assessment. And even then, the best he’ll be able to offer is an educated guess. He asked one very pertinent question. If Actalmar couldn’t do it in three years, how can you realistically expect us to do it in less than a year?”

  As the plane taxied towards a terminal, Morales emailed Rebecca. “Hi Rebecca, just landed at JFK and should arrive in Manhattan about 8:30, too late to see your father. Perhaps you and your husband would like to meet for dinner. I’m at the St. Regis, but we can meet near the hospital, if that’s more convenient for you.”

  Her response was almost immediate. “That would be wonderful. Unfortunately, Daniel can’t come, but I’d love to see you. He sent his regrets and says that he’s looking forward to meeting you. If his meeting ends early, he will drop by for dessert. It has been such a long time. Just tell me where.”

  One perk of being ultra-rich is having personal assistants. Morales called one of his three personal assistants, the one particularly adept at getting him reservations for virtually anything. He explained that he wanted an elegant, quiet restaurant with excellent food and wine. Within ten minutes, he had a reservation at a restaurant called “Pedigree”

  “Pedigree 9:30” he texted

  “How did you do that? We’ve been trying for months to get in and haven’t been successful,” she replied.

  He replied by telling the truth and lying: “I know people. Looking forward to seeing you. Sorry your husband can’t make it.”

  Pedigree was the hot new restaurant of the moment, having earned three Michelin stars within six months of its opening. Morales scheduled dinner at 9:30 to give himself time to have a quick drink with Luis, who was working for the New York Times. Luis had made a name for himself as an investigative reporter for the Times and had just accepted a job as the head of investigative reporting at El Universal, a major Mexican newspaper. From his vantage point at the bar, Morales could see the reception desk of the restaurant and when he saw Rebecca, he waived. When she joined him, he made appropriate formal introductions. There was some small talk and Luis made ready to leave and said, “See you in Mexico City.”

  “Remember Luis, anything I can help you with, let me know.”

  Luis shaking Morales’ hand, responded “Many thanks little brother” turned and left.

  Rebecca latched on to his arm said teasingly, “Little brother?”

  He laughed, considering that he was at least six inches taller than Luis. “It’s a nickname from a long time ago.”

  They sat across from each other and Morales had his first hard look at Rebecca. He felt that her earlier beauty and her allure were undiminished by time. True, she no longer had her youthful beauty was, but she was still stunning, and her violet eyes seemed more intense to him than he had remembered. Yet, there was something different in her demeanor. She seemed to stoop ever so slightly and appeared smaller. He studied her face for a moment and could see slight signs of strain. Or was it fear?

  She noticed him staring, and said, “I hope I pass muster in middle age.”

  “My God Rebecca, if anything, you’ve improved with age, if that’s possible. It’s so good to see you. It’s been such a long time since I last saw you and your little niece.”

  All of those longings that had congealed many years earlier to form his overwhelming, virtually uncontrollable obsession for Rebecca, longings that he thought he conquered, resurfaced and overtook him. When Morales replayed the moment later in his hotel room, he realized that those feelings never left him. They were just lying dormant within him, waiting for the right stimuli to reawaken. All it took was her physical presence.

  What he was sensing as he sat across from her was more than psychological; it was physical. It was as if some warm electrical charge passed through his body. For a moment he closed his fists tightly to control his emotions. Did she realize he was trembling slightly? Morales knew that it was critical that he be nothing more than warm and friendly, though the temptation to touch her, to embrace her, to reveal that he still longed for her beyond all reason was hard to resist.

  Rebecca was simultaneously assessing Morales. There was little doubt that he had aged well. He was broader than he was as a student and taller than she remembered him. And she thought, “Sexy.” She had a momentary image of them making love. This kind of thought was not unique to this particular moment. In the pre-Event days, driven by her libido, she often imagined men, some of whom she knew, and some who just passed her by, having sex with her. It was the first time she thought about sex since the Event.

  Of necessity, Morales had become an expert on reading body language and facial expressions. Often people would say one thing to him, but their facial expressions and body language told him something else.

  “You’re staring at me again, Hector.”

  “Sorry, may I say again that you look lovely, but also I sense you look somewhat stressed.”

  His accurate assessment surprised Rebecca. “How did you know that?”

  He smiled and lied, “In the cattle business, you meet some pretty shady characters. Not criminals that I know of, but liars.” He was tempting to say, but resisted, “and I’m the king of the liars.” He asked, “Would you like some wine or something stronger? They make an excellent martini here.”

  “I think I could use one of those.”

  While they waited, Rebecca gave Morales a five-minute version of her desperate financial situation. When the drinks arrived, they touched their glasses and Morales said, “Cheers, though I am sorry about the circumstances bringing us together. Perhaps I can help you. I owe your father a great deal.”

  “I’m afraid it may be too late. The business is a few months away from going under.”

  “No. We can’t let that happen. Your father told me about the splendid work you were doing on Alzheimer related drugs. He said you were making significant advances. In fact, I wanted to speak with you about your technologies. As I mentioned, I’m on the Board of Directors of the ABC Hospital in Mexico City, and I know that they are keenly interested in any potential new drugs related to Alzheimer’s. I also have a minority interest, about twenty percent in Rio Sonora Pharmaceuticals. They also may be interested in making an investment but I’m only a passive investor, so I really have no say in the company’s management. And, frankly, I’m the last person to ask about drugs.” He thought for a nanosecond about the irony of his last remark.

  “That would be wonderful, but right now we desperately need cash. The company has about four more months of operating capital left. We no longer can borrow and have defaulted on a loan, though the bank has been very nice to us in extending the time to repay it. I don’t know how long that will last. It’s had a devastating effect on Daniel. He’s been working day and night to save the company, but nothing he has done has helped. And the shame of it is that if we put solid money behind the molecule we developed, I think the drug could have widespread utility. Time, however, is not on our side. And, in the interest of full disclosure, Actalmar Pharmaceutical put about three billion into trying to expand the drug’s utility, but failed. Still, I’m positive that we can alter my molecule and have widespread success. All we need is money and time; in that order.”

  “Well, Rebecca, if I can help in any way, I will. Maybe with the right funding you can carry on your work and make the drug successful. You are the real expert on your drug. So, who better than you to carry it forward? Did you get access to Actalmar’s research?”

  His question surprised her. “Yes. Why do you ask?’”

  “Well, they probably went down many roads and failed. If you continued to research, I assume you wouldn’t waste your time going down the same roads.”

  She laughed and said, “I never thought of it that way, but y
ou’re right.”

  “But tell me about the drug. Not the technical stuff, which I wouldn’t understand, but what happens to the three percent when it works.”

  She finished her first martini, and seemingly out of nowhere the waiter came with a second. She took three long sips and said, “Well in the three percent, the results are very exciting. The drug not only halted the progression of the symptoms of dementia, but reversed them. Let me tell you about one of the most remarkable cases reported to us. It led us to name the drug ‘Clarity.’ One patient in our clinical trials, an elderly woman with advanced Alzheimer’s, began taking our drug. She was deteriorating at a very rapid rate. When she took Clarity in our clinical trials, she was at a point of not remembering loved ones and often confused as to where she was. Three to four decades earlier, she was a concert pianist and taught at Julliard. For the first week that she took Clarity there was no change, and we all thought she was part of the ninety-seven percent for whom the drug did not work. One morning, however, while her son- and daughter-in-law were having breakfast, they heard the notes of a piano piece coming from their living room. The woman, dressed, and well-groomed was playing the piano. The son told us she looked as clear-eyed as if she were forty. Dumbfounded, they blurted simultaneously, ‘Mother?’”

  “The woman, who prior to the onset of the disease, had an acerbic wit replied, ‘Who did you expect, Mary Dante?’” She’s a young popular singer. She continued playing and simultaneously spoke to her daughter-in-law.

  “The woman said, ‘My God Marsha, you are a saint, having to put up with me for all of these months. It must have been so difficult for you.’ Amazingly, she recounted incidents that even Marsha had forgotten. And then she said, ‘Tell me. This new drug that you’ve been giving me for the last week, I’m assuming it’s only part of a drug testing protocol and when that’s done, the drug will not be available.”

  “Her son blurted out, ‘How do you know these things?’ and the woman laughed and said, ‘Well, I woke in the middle of the night. I couldn’t sleep. I think because it was the first time in many years, I had cohesive and rationale thought. I figured out that the change was probably because of the new drug and went on to Google to see what I could learn.’”

  “‘Your assumptions are absolutely right’,” her son said, happy tears in his eyes.”

  “‘Then it’s also likely that the tests may stop and the drug will no longer be available to me. And, at least according to what I’ve read, I will revert to my prior state a few days later.’”

  “The son and daughter-in-law hadn’t thought about that, but realized she was right. In unison they said softly, ‘Yes.’”

  “She responded with an upbeat, ‘Well who knows when that will happen. Meantime, let’s enjoy every moment together. I’d love to see Angelia and Max when they come home from school. They should both be sophomores in high school by my calculation.’” She was correct.

  “For the next week or so it was if the woman had never been sick. What impressed us was that she said that she felt that the drug somehow went beyond restoring her memory; it improved it. She said that she saw things with absolute clarity; clarity that she never experienced before, and that gave her a feeling of both joy and serenity. We have a few other stories like this about patients suffering from depression and addiction. We didn’t run any tests for these maladies, but have a great deal of anecdotal evidence showing that the drug also works well in these areas. Hector, I don’t want to sound like a Pollyanna or that I’m trying to sell you, but I truly believe my molecule has the potential of being a miracle drug.”

  When he heard the words “miracle drug” Morales felt his adrenaline spike. For the first time he thought what Rebecca had developed, coupled with a highly addictive component, just might lead to the super-drug that Aztec desperately needed.

  “But then the tests stopped as did the drugs, despite pleas of the son and daughter- in -law. The woman, however, was fatalistic. Two days after going off the drug, she committed suicide and left such a lovely note that they read it at her funeral. There are other stories like this. If I had the time and money, I’m convinced I could alter the drug so it would work on virtually everyone who took it.”

  “If you send me the information, I will pass it on to the hospital and to Rio Sonora to have them see if it warrants an investment. They can decide fairly quickly. To the extent there is confidential or proprietary information, I will have everyone sign a confidentiality agreement. But judging from your situation, time is of the essence.”

  The waiter arrived with two dishes. “Amuse-bouche, compliments of the chef. He suggests the tasting menu.” Morales looked at Rebecca, nodded his head to the waiter and said, “And let’s have it with the wine pairing.”

  Perhaps it was the few drinks she had or the knowledge that there might be light at the end of the financial tunnel, but Rebecca began to relax. She put her hand on his arm and said, “So, tell me Hector. How did a nice young boy become a cattle baron? What has your life been like since we last saw each other?”

  He responded by combining a litany of truths and lies about how the cattle business had made him a wealthy man. After her third glass of wine, Rebecca was sufficiently uninhibited to ask a question that had been on her mind as soon as she sat down. Her father, an attendee at Morales’ and Isabella’s, wedding had shown her a photograph of Isabella. “Hector, I really hope that this question does not offend you.”

  Before she could continue, Morales said, “Isabella. It’s her looks.”

  Surprised by his response, she said, “Yes. You have aged well and you are an extremely handsome man. You don’t notice these things, but many women who pass our table give you more than a second look. And, you could have your choice of many fabulous and beautiful women. I can’t imagine that you married for money.”

  Morales used his experience with Marcella as his starting point and expanded his truthful beginning into a fictional ending. He described how he met Marcella in Hong Kong, and how they began seeing each other after the trip was over. “She was a young lawyer in Washington DC. I was still with the bank and working on a deal with the Bank of Hong Kong. Long story short, we spent as much time as possible together. I was deeply in love with her, but ultimately, she broke it off because I could not see myself living in Washington and she wouldn’t live in Mexico City. I took the breakup particularly hard for several months, but finally decided to give up banking and move to Washington DC. Before I could write to her, however, Mrs. Chula had died unexpectedly.”

  “Along with my mother and father, I went to the hacienda to attend the funeral. When I was alone with Mr. Chula, he told me that Isabella was lonely and often felt isolated. He asked me about marrying her. He coupled his question with an extravagant financial offer. Isabella and I had been the closest of friends for years, and I had a deep love for her, but to be honest, not in a romantic way. It sounded like a crazy proposition and I decided to resume my relationship with Rebecca.”

  She laughed and chided him humorously, “My my. Was that a Freudian slip?

  He blushed slightly. “Sorry. I meant Marcella. I told Mr. Chula I’d think about it, but it was likely that I would reject his request. I emailed Marcella, and she replied immediately with a photograph of herself and her new husband at their wedding, with three words, ‘Sorry, too late.’ It was quite a blow. When she had ended our relationship, deep down I had the hope that we would reunite. It kept me going. I became distraught, started drinking, and probably became clinically depressed. One night when I was drunk out of my mind and don’t ask me why because I don’t really know why, I texted Morales and said that I accepted his offer. It was a stupid knee jerk reaction and after I said yes, momentum took over and it was too late to change my mind, and withdraw my acceptance. So, I didn’t marry her for money, but out of sympathy, respect and an abiding and deep affection. It was foolish, but things have not turned out so badly. She is extraordinary, a brilliant companion, and I have become quite ric
h. Life is funny. Sometimes choices that you regret at first turn out to be the right ones.”

  Finished, he thought to himself, “Not bad for the spur of the moment, and there were even kernels of truth.”

  Rebecca couldn’t help herself. She knew her next question would be indelicate, but she couldn’t imagine Morales making love to her. As she was thinking about how to ask the next question as delicately as possible, Morales said in the most casual of ways, “We are very much a married couple, except for the sexual part. We don’t sleep together. In fact, we have separate rooms. With Isabella’s permission, I can have as many women as I want. So, I can be- no, so I am, quite the Lothario.”

  For the first time, Rebecca brought up the past. She quipped, “You were quite the Lothario back at the hacienda.”

  “Well, as I recall, there was someone who inspired me.”

  An awkward silence followed, broken by the arrival of a dessert cart. Morales ordered two glasses of Chateau Yquem. She smiled and touched his arm again and said in a voice showing that she was joking, “Chateau Yquem. You really must be doing well.” He thought, “You don’t know the half of it,” but replied, “Not bad for a poor Mexican cattle rancher.” She continued, “Well, I’m glad at least one of us is doing well.”

  Morales turned serious and said, “Assuming you had all the funding you needed and the people, equipment and testing data you needed, how long before you could get your molecule to be effective with a substantial percentage of users?”

  She didn’t hesitate in answering, “If I devote all my energy to the project, with significant funding, and with the right people, I’m thinking maybe a year to perfect and test the drug, at least to our satisfaction.”