Dead End

by Brian Freemantle

  Rebecca nodded to the closed magazine. ‘It’s you everyone wrote about.’

  ‘What’s your prize?’ Parnell wished he could go back to Science Today.

  ‘Who knows?’ It wasn’t a coquettish remark.

  ‘What section are you in?’ If he had to talk, it might as well be professional.

  ‘Back of the bus stuff, co-ordinating and cross-referencing overseas research with what we’re doing here, where it’s applicable. Flagging up stuff that might be worthwhile our pursuing further, concentrating upon.’

  ‘I’d say that makes you a pretty important person, too.’

  She sniggered. ‘There are a lot of units. I don’t do it all by myself!’

  ‘Any breakthroughs?’

  The girl hesitated. ‘Not yet. Ever hopeful.’

  ‘Still quite a responsibility for someone who considers themself at the back of the bus.’

  ‘There’s a line manager checking me and a section head checking him. It’s all very structured. Haven’t you appreciated everything’s run here to a tightly ordered and controlled set of rules?’

  ‘I’m beginning to get the idea.’

  ‘I told you my secret. Now tell me yours.’

  Parnell looked blankly at her. ‘I don’t know what you’re asking.’

  ‘How come you got shifted so quickly from the back of the bus?’

  Parnell no longer regretted putting his magazine aside, trying to separate the discordant echoes of this exchange from the earlier one with Russell Benn. ‘How can you imagine there’s something secret about it, just like that?’ He snapped his fingers.

  ‘Everything’s very structured,’ she emphasized again. ‘You were given your space but you moved it.’

  ‘It was temporary,’ avoided Parnell.

  Rebecca regarded him doubtfully over her coffee mug, her sandwich abandoned half eaten. ‘You’re at the heart of the Spider’s Web now. That’s where the real research is.’

  ‘And where I want – and need – to be to fulfil my appointment and justify the creation of the new department,’ said Parnell.

  ‘You want to be,’ she isolated, at once.

  ‘Where I have to be,’ Parnell reiterated.

  ‘You really think genetics could bring about miracles?’

  ‘No,’ Parnell immediately answered. ‘I think it’s an avenue with medical benefits that has to be explored, to discover what its engineering can achieve.’ And I’m going to be among the first to achieve it, he promised himself.

  ‘I don’t think he’s our sort of team player,’ judged Russell Benn.

  ‘It’ll take time,’ predicted Dwight Newton. ‘In time he’ll learn – or come to accept – the way things work here.’

  ‘I’m not so sure.’

  ‘Keep a tight handle on things, Russ. On him the tightest of all. You think there’s anything I’ve missed, you come tell me right away. I don’t want any disruption to the smooth way things always work here.’

  ‘I know you don’t,’ said the black scientist. ‘But he’s got a proven track record. I’ve got an odd feeling, an instinct, that professionally he’ll be useful.’

  ‘Sufficiently useful to put up with his attitude problem?’

  ‘Arrogance is an irritation, not a cause for censure,’ said Benn. ‘I’m suggesting we let things run their way for a while, to discover for ourselves how good he really is.’

  ‘That’s what we’ve got to decide,’ agreed Newton. ‘Just how good he is.’

  ‘And how amenable he can be made to commercial reality,’ came in Benn, on a familiar cue.

  Three

  It was Richard Parnell’s first ever commercial-firm seminar and even though he was not looped into the internal machinations of Dubette Inc., he was conscious of a frisson ruffling the faint strands of the Spider’s Web. It was, however, peripheral to his establishing himself in his new, inner-circle surroundings, which, coincidentally, on the day of the seminar, he finally completed. To achieve his self-imposed deadline, Parnell got to his section by six to supervise the technicians’ last installations, and was fully set up, with time for an unhurried breakfast of an egg-topped corned beef hash. He saw Rebecca Lang’s approach from some way off. The nameplated laboratory coat was replaced by a dark grey business suit which, by the severity of its cut, showed off an even more attractive figure than he’d imagined. There was more makeup, too, mascara and eye shadow: Parnell preferred her without either.

  He smiled and said: ‘Hi again. What did you win?’

  She didn’t reply, stopping to look down at him, as she had the day of the supposed bet. ‘No one told you? Bastards!’

  ‘Told me what?’

  ‘Grant’s addressing us. He always does.’

  ‘I was told.’

  ‘There’s a dress code. He likes formality.’

  Parnell looked down at his sweatshirt, jeans and loafers before coming back up to her. ‘You are joking, aren’t you – about it being important how we’re dressed?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I think it’s funny, even if you don’t. Anything that stupid has got to be funny.’

  ‘I don’t think it’s funny.’

  ‘I’ll hide myself in the crowd,’ promised Parnell.

  But he couldn’t. The seats were designated and his was in the second row, directly in front of an already emplaced podium on a higher dais. Behind the podium were seats for the parent-company directors and the chief executives from Dubette’s overseas divisions. Parnell was aware of the attention and the frowns of those around him as he edged along his reserved line to his assigned place.

  Parnell sensed the stir and rose with everyone else at the entry of the governing directors on to the raised area, led by Edward C. Grant. The president was a small, bull-chested man, the whiteness of his hair heightened by a deep tan. The man made his way across the stage with the confidence of someone who knew seas would part if he demanded it. He wore a dark blue suit that Parnell realized had been copied by virtually everyone surrounding him. Parnell’s sweatshirt was yellow and he accepted that he stood out like a beacon. Being 6'2" made him even more of a lighthouse among his smaller neighbours. When the president came to the podium for his keynote address, Parnell at once became Grant’s unremitting focus. Parnell stared back unperturbed. He’d heard of commercial companies ruled like medieval fiefdoms, but always imagined the stories exaggerated by those in pure research, to reassure themselves they were right to remain aloof in cosseted scientific academia.

  The past year had been more successful than that preceding it, opened Grant. There had been a 20 per cent increase in after-tax profits, which he was later that month going to announce to the stockholders, with a recommendation for an overall salary increase. The excellence of the research division gave every expectation of new or improved drugs being introduced into the marketplace: medical breakthroughs even. They could not, however, relax. Competition was intense and would remain so: increase even. Turning to acknowledge one of the men assembled behind him, Grant said there had been, from their French subsidiary, a suggestion how to thwart reverse-analyses of their more successful drugs. It was essential to guard against that, from their competitors, as it was against their products being pirated by such analyses, particularly by Third World countries pleading poverty as an excuse for manufacturing their own cheaper versions from published formulae, denying companies like themselves the profits essential to recover their huge and continuing research expenditure. During the past year Dubette had initiated twenty-three patent and copyright infringement actions in ten countries, and so far had succeeded in fifteen, with every confidence of the remaining eight being adjudged in their favour. Although too large and too diverse properly to fit the description, Grant nevertheless considered Dubette a family structure, people working together, pulling together, according to a strictly observed set of understandings, like a united, cohesive household. Parnell went through the motions of clapping, along with everyone else, and thought that the individ
ual presentations from chief executives of Dubette’s foreign-based divisions that followed sounded exactly like an end-of-term report to the headmaster.

  They funnelled into a lounge of easy chairs and potted plants that adjoined the commissary. Today the furniture had been rearranged to create an open communal space. Premixed drinks were already laid out on a bartended table that ran the full length of the glassed wall overlooking the grassed park and its artificial lake. Parnell noted the concentration of people helping themselves was around the mineral-water selection. He saved himself the search by asking one of the barmen for gin and tonic.

  He’d separated from Rebecca Lang at the entrance to the conference room and not seen where she’d sat. He saw her now, though, among the mineral-water group. She saw him when she turned, hesitated and then made her way towards him.

  Parnell said: ‘We got a cure for leprosy among what we make?’

  She smiled and said: ‘That bad?’

  He grinned back. ‘You’re risking infection, just talking to me.’

  ‘I’ll check our stock list, see what there is that I can take.’ She had to tilt her head to look up at him. ‘You sure grew up big when you were small.’

  ‘I worked out and ate up all my greens.’

  ‘Dubette should patent the formula.’

  ‘You didn’t tell me what you won.’

  ‘You don’t want to know.’

  There was a shift throughout the room at the arrival of the president with a retinue of division and overseas directors, a general turning in their direction. Parnell said: ‘It’s your last chance to escape.’

  From where he stood, and with his height, Parnell could see better than Rebecca the approaching dignitaries in their carefully stage-managed procession through the room. He said: ‘They’re getting closer. Time for you to distance yourself.’

  ‘Don’t mock me. You wanna bet upon their picking on us?’

  ‘You’d have lost,’ said Parnell, at the group’s arrival.

  ‘We haven’t met,’ announced the Dubette president. ‘I’m Edward C. Grant.’

  ‘I’m …’ started Parnell, but the burly, white-haired man said: ‘I know who you are, Richard. And you, Rebecca.’ To the woman, he gave an odd, head-jerking bow. Coming back to Parnell he said: ‘Welcome to the Dubette family.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Parnell. Dwight Newton was amidst the retinue, which explained how he had been identified, and the Christian-name familiarity was an Americanism he was already used to.

  ‘Think you’re going to like it here?’ demanded Grant. He had a short, staccato delivery that made everything he said sound urgent. There was no offered hand.

  ‘Too early to tell yet.’ Rebecca had slightly withdrawn and Parnell was conscious of the concentration from everyone in the room upon him and the smaller man, who had to strain up even more than Rebecca to look at him, which Parnell guessed would be an annoyance.

  ‘Got everything you want?’

  ‘I think I have, now.’ Parnell was aware of Newton’s features tightening behind the president.

  ‘When are you going to start recruitment?’

  Parnell wondered what excuse had been made for the delay, about which Grant obviously knew. ‘Virtually at once.’

  ‘We’re expecting great things from you, Richard.’

  ‘I’m expecting great things from myself.’

  There was an over-the-shoulder head jerk. ‘I’ve asked Dwight to keep me up to speed. Like to be able to talk about something at the next seminar.’

  But he hadn’t mentioned the creation of the new division in his keynote speech at this one, Parnell thought. ‘I’ve got some ideas but I don’t expect things to move that fast.’

  ‘I’d be disappointed if you didn’t have ideas,’ said Grant, positive sharpness in his voice. ‘That’s why we made you our offer. Why we’re setting up the division and have given you the budget we have.’

  ‘And that’s why I accepted it, expecting to be able to develop them through a company as large and extensive as this.’

  ‘So, we’re both rowing in the same direction.’

  Was that a casual remark or a very direct reference to how close he’d been to getting a rowing blue at Cambridge University, before his graduation? Parnell said: ‘Let’s hope we don’t miss a stroke.’

  ‘Let’s both of us very much hope you don’t miss a stroke,’ echoed the other man.

  ‘Am I also expected to apologize?’

  ‘For what?’ frowned Grant.

  ‘Being improperly dressed.’

  The smile was as tight as the manner in which the man spoke. ‘You’ll know next time.’

  Parnell was tempted to respond but didn’t. It wasn’t, after all, a verbal contest.

  As he led the group away, Grant said: ‘Don’t forget my expectations.’

  Parnell decided not to reply to that, either.

  Rebecca waited until the presidential party was beyond hearing before closing the gap between them. Parnell said: ‘I warned you to go under the wire when you still had a chance.’

  ‘At least he knows my name now.’

  ‘Maybe not for the right reason.’

  ‘I’ve thought about our stock list,’ Rebecca shrugged. ‘We don’t do a leprosy treatment.’

  ‘We wouldn’t, would we?’ invited Parnell, refusing to pick up on their earlier lightness. ‘It’s largely eradicated except in underdeveloped countries. And we’ve just been lectured that there’s no profit trying to sell to the Third World.’

  ‘Ouch!’ grimaced Rebecca.

  ‘You want to risk having dinner?’

  ‘What time?’

  Rebecca chose the restaurant, Italian just up Wisconsin Avenue from M Street, and said she’d meet him there instead of his going all the way out to Bethesda to pick her up. Parnell arrived intentionally early, which gave him time to study the menu, which looked good, and get through most of a martini before she arrived.

  She laughed the moment she saw him and said: ‘We’ve got to start getting this dress code right!’ She wore jeans and a suede shirt: he’d changed into a blazer – with the Cambridge University breast-pocket motif – and grey trousers.

  Parnell said: ‘Let’s keep surprising each other.’

  Rebecca nodded to a matching martini and Parnell ordered a second. He offered the menu but she said: ‘I know what I’m going to have. I worked through college as a waitress here. I get special treatment.’

  She did. The owner, Giorgio Falcone, genuinely Italian-born, personally returned with the drinks and kissed her and shook Parnell’s hand effusively and recommended the veal, which Parnell accepted. Rebecca and the owner conversed in Italian and the moustached chef, who was introduced only as Ciro, was brought from the kitchen to be introduced as well.

  When they were finally alone Parnell said: ‘I’m impressed!’

  ‘You’re supposed to be. I’m showing off.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Just because,’ she said.

  ‘Fluent in Italian?’

  ‘Difficult not to be. Mom was Italian …’ She nodded to the departing owner. ‘He’s my uncle: looks after me. You do me wrong, you get a contract put out on you.’

  Parnell laughed with her, liking the atmosphere. ‘So, a local girl with connections?’

  ‘Georgetown University, reserve intern at Johns Hopkins for a year, then Dubette for fame and fortune,’ listed Rebecca. ‘Short on the fame at the moment but the money’s good and there was a promise of more this morning, remember?’

  Was this the moment to put the questions? he asked himself. It might puncture the mood and he didn’t want to risk that, not yet. Edging towards it though, he said: ‘Quite a lot to remember from this morning.’

  ‘What do you think?’

  ‘I told you what I think. I think the place is knee-deep in bullshit and posturing.’

  ‘And you don’t like bullshit and posturing?’

  They paused for their first courses and for Parnell
to taste the Barollo, another owner recommendation. ‘It’s not going to affect me. Or what I’ve taken the job to do.’

  ‘You always been this confident?’

  ‘I’ve always known what I wanted to do, from the day of my first science lesson. Specialization came at university.’

  ‘How?’

  Parnell hesitated. ‘Genetics was comparatively new. A lot of opportunities.’

  ‘Quickly to become known in the field,’ she finished. She raised her glass and said: ‘Here’s to ambition.’

  ‘You have a degree in psychology?’

  ‘Native intuition. I’ve told you about me. Tell me about you.’

  ‘Brought up by my grandmother while my abandoned, unmarried mother qualified as a solicitor. Grammar school … I don’t know what the equivalent is here, in America … scholarship to Cambridge University, graduated in time to become involved in the genome project. Worked with a lot of very qualified and clever guys. Learned everything I could from them …’

  ‘And achieved the fame?’ she quickly finished, again.

  ‘I finished off what a lot of those very qualified and clever guys began. Which I said at the time.’

  ‘I read it. You were very generous.’

  ‘Honest,’ he insisted.

  ‘I think that’s been noticed.’

  Their plates were changed, more wine poured. Deciding the remark made the timing right, Parnell said: ‘Am I missing something?’

  ‘I certainly am, with that question,’ protested Rebecca.

  ‘About Dubette. It’s as if there’s a second meaning behind everything that’s said or done. All this dress code and understood rules and family crap … crap because there’s an atmosphere, an impression, that people are insecure. Frightened almost, which is me compounding the nonsense …’

  ‘Dubette are big payers … the best in the business. People with commitments, kids, don’t want to lose big-paying jobs.’ Rebecca began twirling her glass between her fingers, her meal forgotten, looking down into the wine.

  ‘Why should they lose their big-paying jobs, unless they screw up? You get a good job, you do it properly, do it well, not to lose it.’