Strong Medicine

by Arthur Hailey

  Winnie’s eyes, brimming with tears, went to the newspaper, then to Andrew. “I’d an ’ard enough time gettin’ this baby. So … oh, God bless you, Dr. Jordan!”

  Celia, relieved and grateful, took Winnie in her arms and held her.

  5

  Sam Hawthorne had the appearance of a walking ghost.

  The sight of him, during her first day back at Felding-Roth, so shocked Celia that she found it impossible to speak. For that reason, Sam spoke first.

  “Well, how does it feel to return in glory, proved right and virtuous when all the rest of us were wrong and evil? Pretty good, eh?”

  The unfriendly words, in a rasping voice she scarcely recognized, added to her shock. It was seven months since Celia had seen Sam. In that time he appeared to have aged at least ten years. His face was haggard and pale, with flesh around his cheekbones hanging loose. His eyes were dull and seemed to have receded; beneath them were dark, baggy rings. His shoulders drooped. He had lost weight dramatically so that the suit he was wearing was ill-fitting.

  “No, Sam,” Celia said, “I don’t feel good. Only sad for all of us, and I’m desperately sorry about your grandson. As to coming back, I’m simply here to help.”

  “Oh, yes, I thought you’d get around to being …”

  She interrupted. “Sam, can’t we go somewhere more private?”

  They had encountered each other in a corridor where others were passing as they talked. Celia had just come from a meeting with Seth Feingold and several directors.

  The president’s office was a short distance away. Without speaking, Sam walked toward it. Celia followed.

  Inside, with the outer door closed, he swung toward her. The rough, sour voice persisted. “What I started to say was—I thought you’d get around to being sorry. That’s so easy. Now, why don’t you go on to say what you’re really thinking?”

  She said quietly, “You’d better tell me what you think I’m thinking.”

  “I know damn well! That I was criminally irresponsible in giving Montayne to Juliet when the drug wasn’t even approved. That I’m the one, I alone, who caused Juliet’s and Dwight’s baby, my grandson, to be the way he is—a useless mockery of a human being, nothing but a …” Sam choked on the final words and turned away.

  Celia stood silently, torn by sorrow and compassion, weighing what to say. Finally she spoke.

  “If you want the truth, Sam—and this seems to be a moment for it—yes, I did think that. I suppose I still do.”

  Sam was looking at her directly, hanging on her every word, she realized, as she continued.

  “But then there are other things you get around to remembering. That it’s easy to have twenty-twenty hindsight. That all of us make mistakes in judgment …”

  “You didn’t make them. Not this one. Not a whole series of mistakes as big as mine.” Still the bitterness.

  “I’ve made others,” Celia said. “Everyone with responsibility does. And it’s often bad luck that makes some mistakes turn out worse than others.”

  “This is one of the worst.” Sam moved behind his desk and slumped into a chair. “And all those other babies, including the unborn ones. I’m responsible …”

  “No,” she said firmly. “That isn’t true. As far as the rest, you were guided by the lead of Gironde-Chimie and by scientific advice. You weren’t alone. Other responsible people felt the same way.”

  “Except for you. What made you so special that you weren’t taken in?”

  She reminded him, “I was, to begin.”

  Sam put his head in his hands. “Oh, Christ! What a mess I’ve made.” He looked up. “Celia, I’m being unfair and rotten to you, aren’t I?”

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  His voice became lower, losing its edge. “I’m sorry, and I mean that. I suppose if I tell the truth, I’m jealous of you. That, and wishing I’d listened, taken your advice.” Disjointed words followed. “Haven’t been sleeping. Lie awake hour after hour, thinking, remembering, feeling guilty. My son-in-law won’t speak to me. My daughter doesn’t want to see me. Lilian tries to help us all, but doesn’t know how.”

  Sam stopped, hesitated, then went on, “And there’s something else. Something you don’t know.”

  “What don’t I know?”

  He turned his head away. “I’ll never tell you.”

  “Sam,” Celia said firmly, “you have to take hold. Nothing will be gained, for you or anyone, by torturing yourself.”

  As if he had not heard, he said, “I’m finished here. You know that.”

  “No. I don’t know it at all.”

  “I wanted to resign. The lawyers say I mustn’t, not yet. I have to stay in place.” He added dourly, “The façade must be preserved. To protect the company. So as not to provide more fodder for the jackal-lawyers with their damage suits, closing in. That’s why I’m still to be president for a while, sitting in this chair, for the sake of shareholders.”

  “I’m glad to hear it,” Celia said. “You’re needed to run the company.”

  He shook his head. “You’re going to do that. Haven’t you been told? The board decided.”

  “Seth just told me some of it. But I need you.”

  He looked at her, unspoken anguish in his eyes.

  Making a sudden decision, Celia went to the outer door. It could be locked with a bolt. She turned it. There was a similar bolt on a door to the secretaries’ office. Celia locked that too. Lifting up a telephone, she said, “This is Mrs. Jordan. I’m with Mr. Hawthorne. We are not to be disturbed.”

  Sam was still at his desk, unmoving.

  She asked him, “Since this happened, have you cried?”

  He seemed surprised, then shook his head. “What good would that do?”

  “Sometimes it helps.”

  She came close, leaned down, and put her arms around him. “Sam,” she whispered, “let yourself go.”

  For a moment he eased away, peering into her face, uncertain, wavering. Then suddenly, as if a dam had broken and like a child, he laid his head on her shoulder and wept.

  Following Celia’s first-day session with Sam, it quickly became evident that he was a tragically broken man, his former spirit shattered, and that he would contribute little to the top-echelon running of the company. While caring deeply, Celia was obliged to accept the situation as it was.

  Sam came in each day, still driving his silver-gray Rolls-Bentley and parking it on the garage catwalk level. Occasionally he and Celia would arrive there at the same time, Celia in her chauffeured company car, for which she was grateful since it enabled her to work, reading papers, during her journeys to and from home. At such moments she and Sam would walk together to the main headquarters building, using the glassed-in ramp to reach the special elevator to the executives’ eleventh floor. Between them there might be some small talk but, if so, it was Celia who started it.

  Once in his office, Sam mostly stayed there. No one inquired exactly what he did, but apart from a few innocuous memos, nothing of any consequence emerged. At management conferences—though informed of them in advance—Sam was noticeably absent.

  Thus, from the second day after her return, there was not the slightest doubt that Celia was in charge.

  Top-level issues requiring policy decisions were referred to her. Other problems, which had been hanging in abeyance, were brought to her attention for solution. She dealt with them all, using the promptness, common sense and strong purpose that had always been her hallmark.

  Conferences with lawyers occupied much of her time.

  The first lawsuits were being filed as a result of publicity concerning Montayne and the drug’s withdrawal. Some of the lawsuits appeared genuine. A few babies, among them premature ones, had already been born in the United States with deformities similar to those in other countries where the mothers of defective children had taken Montayne during pregnancy.

  Inevitably, this list of genuine cases would increase. A confidential, in-house estimate of the
total number of U.S. babies who would be born malformed because of Montayne was slightly more than four hundred. This figure had been reached using statistics coming in from France, Australia, Spain, Britain and other countries. It took into account the length of time Montayne had been on sale in those countries, the quantity of the drug sold, and comparative figures for the United States.

  Of the other lawsuits, some were filed on behalf of Montayne-taking mothers who had not yet given birth; these were based on fear of what might happen and, for the most part, charged Felding-Roth with negligence. A small remainder were believed frivolous or fraudulent, though all would have to be dealt with formally—the whole involving enormous legal time and cost.

  As to cost overall, Celia—who had had to learn quickly about a subject entirely new to her—discovered that Felding-Roth carried product liability insurance amounting to a hundred and thirty-five million dollars. As well, the company had an internal reserve, for the same purpose, of another twenty million dollars.

  “That hundred and fifty-five million sounds a lot, and might cover all the claims we’ll settle,” Childers Quentin, a lawyer, told Celia. Then he added, “On the other hand, I wouldn’t count on it. The Likelihood is, you’ll need to raise more elsewhere.”

  Quentin, an avuncular white-haired figure in his seventies, with courtly manners, was head of a Washington law firm specializing in pharmaceutical matters, especially defense against damage claims. The firm had been retained on the advice of Felding-Roth’s regular lawyers.

  Quentin, Celia learned, was known among colleagues as “Mr. O. C. Fixit,” the initials denoting “out of court.” This because of his negotiating skill—“he has the nerve of a high-stakes poker player,” a company lawyer commented—in knowing just how far to go in getting claims resolved without court proceedings.

  Celia decided early that she would trust Childers Quentin. It also helped that she liked him.

  “What you and I must do, my dear,” he informed her as if addressing a favorite niece, “is make swift settlements that are reasonable and generous. Those last two points are essential in containing a disaster situation such as this. About being generous, remember the worst thing that could happen is for one Montayne case to go into civil court and result in a multimillion-dollar jury award. It would set a precedent for other awards which could break your company.”

  Celia asked, “Is there really a chance of settling everything out of court?”

  “A better one than you might think.” He went on to explain.

  “When grievous, irreversible damage is caused to a child, such as is happening with Montayne, the first reaction of parents is despair, the second, anger. In their anger the parents want to punish those who caused their grief; therefore they seek a lawyer’s help. Above all, the parents want—as the cliché goes—their day in court.

  “But we lawyers are pragmatic. We know that cases which go to court are sometimes lost, and not always for just reasons. We also know that pretrial proceedings, crowded courts, as well as defense-engineered delays, may cause it to be years before a case is heard. Then, even if won, appeals can drag on for years more.

  “Lawyers know, too, that after that first flush of anger their clients will become weary and disillusioned. Trial preparations can dominate their lives. These are personally consuming, an ever-present reminder of their sorrow. Invariably, people wish they had settled early and resumed, as best they could, their normal living.”

  “Yes,” Celia said, “I can understand all that.”

  “There’s more. Personal-injury lawyers, which is the kind we’ll be dealing with, look to their own interests as well as clients’. Many take a damage-claim case on a contingency fee basis, so they receive a third, sometimes more, of what is won. But the lawyers have their own bills to pay—office rent, their children’s college fees, mortgage installments, last month’s American Express account …” Quentin shrugged. “They are as you and I. They would like their money soon, not doubtfully in the distant future, and that is a factor in achieving settlement.”

  “I suppose so.” Celia’s mind had drifted during the last exchange, and now she said, “Some days, since coming back here, I get a feeling of being cold and calculating, thinking only in money terms about Montayne and all that’s happened.”

  Quentin said, “I already know you well enough to believe that will never occur. Also, my dear, in case you think otherwise I assure you I am not indifferent, either, to this terrible tragedy. Yes, I have a job to do, and I will do it. But I am a father and a grandfather, and my heart bleeds for those destroyed children.”

  From this and other sessions, a target was set for a further fifty million dollars to meet possible settlements.

  Also looming was an estimated cost of eight million dollars for the withdrawing, recalling and destruction of all supplies of Montayne.

  When Celia relayed these totals to Seth Feingold he nodded gravely, but seemed less alarmed than she expected.

  “We’ve had two fortuitous happenings since the beginning of the year,” the comptroller explained. “One is exceptionally good results from our O-T-C products, where sales are much greater than anticipated. There also is a large, unexpected and ‘once only’ profit from foreign exchange. Ordinarily, of course, our shareholders would benefit. As it is, both windfalls will have to go toward that added fifty-million reserve.”

  “Well, let’s be grateful to both sources,” Celia said. She remembered that this was not the first time O-T-C products, which she once disdained, had helped keep Felding-Roth solvent in time of trouble.

  “Another thing that seems to be working for us,” Seth continued, “is the promising news from Britain. I assume you’re aware of it.”

  “Yes. I’ve read the reports.”

  “If it becomes necessary, on the strength of them the banks will lend us money.”

  Celia had been delighted to learn of progress at the Harlow institute from where an exciting new drug, Peptide 7, seemed likely to emerge soon—“soon” in drug-development parlance meaning another two years before submission to regulatory agencies for approval.

  In an attempt to reinvolve Sam in company policy, Celia had gone to him to discuss the latest U.K. news.

  Because the British institute had been Sam’s idea, and he had fought to keep it funded, she assumed he would be pleased to have his faith confirmed and hoped, too, it would help offset his deep depression. Neither idea worked out. Sam’s response was indifference. He also rejected a suggestion that he fly to Britain to talk with Martin Peat-Smith and judge the significance of what was happening.

  “Thank you, no,” he told Celia. “I’m sure you can find out what you need by other means.”

  But even Sam’s attitude did not change the fact that Harlow could now loom large in Felding-Roth’s future.

  And something else.

  Vincent Lord’s long years of research into what was known chemically as “the quenching of free radicals,” the elimination of dangerous side effects from otherwise good drugs, had at last shown positive results. These were so auspicious—with all the indications of a major scientific breakthrough, something Lord had always coveted—that a massive research effort in Felding-Roth’s U.S. laboratories was now being directed toward final development.

  While the British Peptide 7 was clearly the drug that would be ready first, Vincent Lord’s creation, provisionally named Hexin W, was likely to be only a year or two behind.

  The second development had another effect. It made Lord’s future more secure at Felding-Roth. Celia had at first considered—in view of Lord’s strong advocacy of Montayne, and for other general reasons—replacing him when an opportunity arose. Yet now he seemed too valuable to lose.

  Thus, surprisingly, and despite the overhanging shadow of Montayne, the company climate suddenly looked brighter.

  6

  At Harlow, Yvonne Evans and Martin Peat-Smith were spending an increasing amount of time together.

  Although Yv
onne still kept a small apartment she had rented when beginning work at the Felding-Roth institute, she was seldom there. Every weekend and most weeknights she was at Martin’s house, where she happily took over the domestic side of Martin’s life as well as attending to his—and her own—sexual needs.

  Yvonne had reorganized the kitchen, which was now orderly and gleaming. From it she produced appetizing meals, exercising a talent as a versatile cook which seemed to come to her naturally and which she enjoyed. Each morning before they left, separately, for work, she made the bed she and Martin shared, seeing to it that the linen was clean and changed more frequently than in the past. She left notes with instructions for the “daily,” the cleaning woman, with the result that the remainder of the house took on the immaculate appearance that comes from an eye for detail, which Yvonne had, and proper supervision.

  Some changes in the pet ménage were also made by Yvonne.

  She added a Siamese cat of her own. Then, one Saturday when Martin was working but Yvonne wasn’t, she brought a saw and other tools with which she constructed a hinged “cat flap” in a rear downstairs door. It meant that the cats were free to come and go at any time, the effect being healthier for the pets and for the household.

  Also, when Yvonne stayed overnight she exercised the dogs in the early morning, supplementing the regular exercise Martin gave them every evening.

  Martin loved it all.

  Something else he loved was Yvonne’s cheerful, usually inconsequential chatter. She talked about a multitude of subjects, few of great importance—current films, the private lives of stars, pop musicians and their offstage antics; which London stores were having sales, and the latest buys at Marks and Spencer; the telly; gossip of the institute—who had become engaged, was pregnant, or about to be divorced; sexual excesses of the clergy, as reported in the vigilant British press; even a political scandal or two … Yvonne absorbed such matters, garnered from listening and selective reading, like a sponge.