The Shadow Box

by Maxim, John R.

  “What do you have?”

  “In the FDA? Maybe thirty-five full-time, unarmed criminal investigators.”

  “For the whole country?”

  “For the world.”

  Aaronson continued counting.

  “Unlike with hard drugs there are no mandatory minimum jail sentences. There are probably no sentencing guidelines either. That means it's easy to work out a fine and maybe do some community service. The fines, by the way, run about five hundred bucks for a first offense. Informers get half of any fines levied but at those prices there's not much incentive for whistle-blowers either. The laws are soft because it's not a sexy subject. It doesn't get headlines. You don't see outraged politicians doing talk shows on it and rushing to put their names on legislation.”

  He paused for a breath.

  “Brendan?”

  Doyle nodded.

  “These people I talked to . . .” The slip of paper again. ”I called seven. Out of the seven, five called me back a second time to give me even more reasons why it can't happen. How's that for cooperation?” Doyle's eyes narrowed.

  “And also to ask me again. Why am I so interested?” The lawyer's antennae started to rise. “Arnie ... do you believe them or don't you?”

  “No.”

  “Because the question shook them up?”

  “Because three of them tried to buy me.”

  Aaronson, having said that, instantly wished he hadn't.

  “Come on, Arnie. Talk to me.”

  “Forget it.”

  “Arnie ... if three multinational drug companies want to shut you up with money, doesn't that tell you . . .”

  “Brendan ... it doesn't tell me shit. Forget it.”

  Doyle let it drop, if only to keep Aaronson from leaving. He spent the next ten minutes settling him down. Arnie, like Michael, had a lot of respect for the industry. Maybe not so much for the marketing people but certainly for the technical side. They're the people who'll cure cancer one day. And AIDS and MS and cystic fibrosis. It's personal with them, he said.

  Aaronson, in their earlier conversation by phone, had mentioned some counterfeit birth control pills from Searle. He had since refreshed his memory. He didn't mind talking about that because it was fairly common knowledge and because it served to support his point that these companies are very responsible.

  The product was Ovulen-21. When it was discovered, the company acted instantly to recall two entire lots at a cost of over a million dollars. What was scary, said Aaronson, was that normally a counterfeit product is chemically identical to the original. That's simply good business. A chemically identical counterfeit is that much harder to detect. Further, because counterfeiters don't pay R&D or taxes, the cost of making a good copy is relatively small versus what the real thing would cost. In fact, the difference can run as high as two thousand percent.

  But if the counterfeiter should run short of an essential chemical, or, say, he doesn't want to leave a chemical trail by buying each of the correct ingredients in bulk, he might decide to use a substitute. In the case of the counterfeit Ovulen, the Guatemalan lab that made it substituted a progesterone hormone for one of the real active ingredients—enthynodiol diactate. They also reduced the estrogen component by half.

  “So the pills didn't work.”

  '‘Oh, they might have. It's not like they used oatmeal. Other oral contraceptives use progestins. They just wouldn't have worked as well.”

  “How were they distributed? Did Searle know?”

  ”I didn't get this from them. In fact, none of the majors would talk except to tell me how things like this can't happen.”

  “Then what's your source? Newspaper accounts?”

  “This stuff never makes the papers. For obvious reasons, the big drug companies like to keep it quiet.”

  ”I can imagine.”

  “Brendan . . .” Aaronson's voice was pained. “Don't look for cover-ups here. These people try very hard to nail counterfeiters. When they do nail them, their attitude is, what the public doesn't know won't hurt them as long as we stay on top of this. By and large, I think that's fair. Why should they let a good and useful product go under, its reputation destroyed, just because some Guatemalan sleazeball tried to make a buck off it?”

  Doyle could appreciate that, he supposed. It certainly explained their sensitivity to Arnie's even asking about it.

  Nor were the drug makers alone in opening new horizons for counterfeiters. Aaronson went on to point out that dozens of prestigious brand names are copied all the time. Cartier, Adidas, Christian Dior. Walk along Canal Street in New York and you'll find Rolex and Patek-Phillipe watches for fifty bucks each. At a glance, most people couldn't tell an eight-thousand-dollar gold Rolex from the fifty-dollar fake unless they compared their weights. The real one would be much heavier. In the same block, he said, you'll find counterfeit videotapes, music tapes, and computer software. One company had the balls to run an ad, he said, in Women's Wear Daily offering immediate delivery of designer labels.

  ‘‘This is just the labels, you understand. You buy them and sew them into a carload of dresses you picked up in Taiwan.”

  “Arnie ... I keep asking. Where do you learn all this?”

  “No secret. Some of it's gossip. But mostly, there's a magazine called the FDA Consumer. You can't find a consumer who's ever heard of it but it's in any good-sized library.”

  Doyle scribbled a note.

  “If consumers don't read it, who's it for?”

  “It's more like a house organ. The FDA uses it to pat itself on the back.”

  He made another note. “What about AdChem? You checked them out?”

  “No.”

  “They weren't one of the seven? Why not?”

  A long breath. “Because Michael worked with them, Brendan.”

  “So?”

  “So I hear he skipped town.”

  Oh, for Christ's sake.

  “And I hear things about him.”

  “From who? Lehman-Stone?”

  A nod. ”I hear things about them too.”

  “And Michael just might sue the shit out of them. He's clean, Arnie. Word of honor.”

  “Where’d he go? He still in the country?”

  “Arnie . . . read my lips. He's dead honest, he's clean, and he's not down in fucking Brazil. He's up buying some dumb-ass hotel on Martha's—” He stopped himself.

  A slow nod from Aaronson, then a quicker one. It said that Aaronson believed him. He also pushed back his chair, which said that this discussion was over.

  Arnie still held his little sheet of paper. He seemed about to crumple it but he hesitated, then placed it on the edge of Doyle's desk. Doyle could see that it was a list of names and numbers.

  “Do me a favor, Brendan,” he said, rising. “You have any more questions, ask them yourself.” He walked toward the door, where he paused.

  “Say hello to Michael, okay? Tell him my heart goes out.”

  Doyle said he would. He watched Aaronson go, saw his briefcase clunk against the door frame as Aaronson walked through it. It sounded heavy. But Aaronson had never opened it. He had fingered the latch a few more times. But he never opened the briefcase.

  Chapter 16

  The rest of Michael's week went by. Megan never came back. Parnel never showed up again either. When Sunday arrived, he did one more thing that he would never admit to anyone. He took another ferry ride.

  He did not disembark at Woods Hole. He had sworn to himself that he wouldn't. But he did stand at the railing of the upper deck, looking for her. She wasn't there. The slip was empty.

  Michael was furious with himself. This was high school. This was being so smitten by Mary Lou McCarthy that he would take the subway up to Washington Heights just to walk down her street and look up at the windows of her apartment hoping to get a glimpse of her.

  “Michael . . . ”

  “Doc . . . just lay off, okay?”

  By the time he got back, Harold and Myra Lovelace
had reported for duty. They were the full-time help and had worked for the Daggetts, in season, for more than twenty years but this would be their last. Their home was a trailer in West Tisbury but Myra's mother had died and left her an almost new double-wide down in Fort Myers. They intended to retire there come October. Meantime, Myra was the housekeeper. Harold was the handyman, gardener, and bellboy, and had occasionally worked the desk.

  “I'm also what they call a concierge,” said Harold with a grin.

  “Oh. Really?”

  “If I ain't heard of it, when and where it's happenin', head back to the ferry ‘cause you got the wrong island.”

  Harold's grin was a permanent fixture. It was there while he ate, while he changed light bulbs, and very probably while he dreamed. Fallon had given them a raise and an up-front bonus because they would be carrying more of the load than usual while he learned to be an innkeeper.

  “All it takes is a good heart,” Harold told him brightly.

  “Head for figures don't hurt,” Myra added.

  “Michael knows about figures. Big investor from New York.”

  “Ain't New York,” Myra reminded him.

  Harold and Myra stayed for only two hours. They'd come mostly to count the linens and draw up a list of preseason chores. After that, said Harold, they'd be on their way because Sunday night was Beefsteak & Bingo Night at the First Congregational Church in West Tisbury.

  They were at the front door. Harold helped Myra with her coat.

  “You're a nice-lookin' fella, Michael,” Myra told him. “Break a lot of ladies' hearts, do you?”

  “They're not beating down my door.”

  ”I know one who might. Pretty blond girl? Wears it tied back?”

  His expression darkened. “Does everyone on this island know Megan?”

  “That her name? I don't, but she's standing, all cow-eyed, right across the street.”

  Megan hadn't moved.

  Harold and Myra walked to their car. Megan watched them go. She stood at the edge of the glow of a streetlight, dressed in white jeans and a cable-knit sweater that was at least two sizes too large and had one of those extra wide necks. Her hands met at her chest. They held what looked to be a bottle of wine. It was wrapped in blue foil.

  Fallon watched her from inside the front door. He'd be damned if he would open it until she made up her mind whether to stay or go. If she turned and left, he would try not to call after her.

  At last, she heaved a sigh and stepped off the curb. He waited. He made her come to the door and knock. He opened it, saying nothing. She looked up at him, then dropped her eyes.

  “Hello, Michael,” she said very softly.

  He tried to remember the words he'd rehearsed in case this moment ever came. Like . . . Hello, Megan. Get lost, Megan. Like ... I figured out why you live alone. Your parents threw you out, right? They pay you to stay away because it's cheaper than paying your shrink bills. You're a neurotic, spaced-out, and manipulative little bitch. Did I mention that I'm HIV positive?

  But Fallon said nothing at all. She held out the bottle. He made no move to take it. She brought it back against her chest and sighed deeply. She hunched her shoulders. The neck of her sweater fell away, partly baring one of them. She looked so very small. So vulnerable. Not at all like the Megan who ...

  Hold it, Michael. Don't even start.

  “Megan . . .” he said quietly. “Enough is enough, okay?’'

  She glanced up North Water Street. Two young girls were walking down in her direction. They were looking at her. One whispered to the other. Megan's color began to rise.

  “Do you have to humiliate me, Michael?”

  Fallon saw the girls who were trying not to stare. They knew rejection when they saw it. He stepped back from the lights of the portico entrance and beckoned Megan to follow. She hesitated, then stepped inside.

  “Two minutes,” he said as he closed the door behind her.

  The remnants of a fire still glowed in the sitting room. She walked toward it and stood near it, holding the wine. She started to lower herself to the carpet.

  “Don't get comfortable,'' Fallon told her. He remained standing at the sitting room's entrance.

  She turned a part of her face toward him.

  “If you feel the need to hurt me,” she said quietly, “could you try to get it all out at once?”

  Hurting you?

  Fallon could only blink. In your head, this is about hurting you? But he said nothing. She turned to face him fully.

  “Michael, I can't make you understand what happened the other night. Not in the time you'll give me.”

  “Good, because I don't want to hear it.”

  Another sigh. She nodded slowly, resignedly. She reached to place the foil-wrapped bottle on the mantel. The sweater bared part of her shoulder again. She shrugged it into place and walked past him toward the door.

  Fallon set his jaw. Just once, he told himself, leave well enough alone. Let her go.

  She reached the front entrance, put her hand on the latch, then hesitated. She leaned her forehead against it.

  “Michael . . . believe me. I don't need this either.”

  “Then why did you come?”

  She spun to face him. “And anyway, screw you,” she blurted angrily. “You think that was my idea of a good time? Why did you have to come to my boat?”

  He had told her why he came. Because he was intrigued. Because from what he'd heard, he thought she was someone he might like. But that was before he learned that there were two of her.

  Her eyes seemed to soften as he had these thoughts. It was almost as if she could hear them. And now she cocked her head slightly and her eyes glazed over as if she were trying to hear more. Her eyes narrowed slightly. She looked up at him.

  “You came again, didn't you? You came again this weekend.”

  Say nothing, Michael. Not a word.

  “This morning,” he told her. “Your boat was gone.”

  Jesus, Michael.

  She looked away. ”I needed some time alone. I ... sailed down to Newport yesterday.”

  Fallon sensed a certain pregnancy in that announcement. “Newport. Should that mean something to me?”

  She flicked a hand, waving the subject off. “Michael, you went there again for some answers. Do you want to hear them or not?”

  “Okay, answer this. Can you read minds?”

  “No.”

  “No, or only sometimes like I think you just did?”

  ”I can't read minds. No one can.”

  “And yet you knew that I went back to see you.”

  An exasperated snort. “If you're asking if I'm perceptive, yes. More so than most? I wish to God I wasn't. Do I know that you do want to hear this? Yes. Do I know that you don't really want me to leave? That you wish there was a way in hell that we could try to be friends? Yes. That doesn't make me a fucking witch, Michael. Those girls who walked past us knew that much.”

  She was pacing the room. She spoke slowly, haltingly.

  “That first day, I said that you were dangerous. You are.”

  She had made him promise that he would say nothing. Not a word until she indicated that he could speak. He was already having difficulty.

  He busied himself stoking the fire. He had opened the wine. It was a decent Chablis. She said that reds do not do well on boats. Megan took the offered glass and set it aside.

  ”I felt violence all around you, Michael. Even when you were being nice. I also felt terrible pain. It was fading, it had started to ease but it was all still there.”

  She looked at the wine glass, decided she could do with a taste.

  “These feelings I had ... a thousand other women could have had them. They'd meet you and think, “This guy is really smoldering. He's carrying a lot of baggage. I don't need this in my life right now.”

  Fallon had drained his first glass. He poured a second. Except for the violence part, he'd had exactly those thoughts about her.

  “But
here's where I'm not like a thousand other women. When you stepped off my boat . . . when I reached out and touched you ... I felt so much more . . . awful things . . . things that frightened me.”

  Fallon grunted. Dead bodies, he remembered. Hundreds of dead bodies.

  “I'm not always right,” she went on as if she'd heard him, “even when I feel it that strongly. So I came here that night to make sure. The best way to do that is to touch. But for that to work ... it's not a trance but it's like a trance. Everything has to be blocked out. Everything that's me, I mean.”

  She squeezed her eyes shut. She hugged herself as she paced.

  ”I sure as hell touched you, didn't I, Michael?”