Moon should be fine, thought Michael. Berman says so. As long as he doesn't get cut. As for Johnny G., Michael knew that this visit wasn't social. Moon had told him that Doyle cut them in, that they had snatched one of those two who weren't muggers after all and, once he talked, steered Moon to the man who very likely killed Jake.
If it was Julie coming up, it would be to present his bill. Julie, being Julie, would want a piece of whatever AdChem has going. Not Johnny, though. Moon says he wants no part of it.
So why is he coming? Maybe Doyle knows.
He went back to the pay phone and tried his call again. A man answered, not Doyle. He sounded like a goon. He said, “Mr. Doyle ain't available. Who's this?” Alarmed, Michael gave his first name, which the goon repeated aloud. Sheila Doyle picked up an extension.
“Michael? Oh, Michael, it's so good to—”
“Aunt Sheila, who was that?”
“His name is Emil Julie sent two more just like him to look after me and Maureen. Did you hear what happened here?”
“Moon told me,” he said.
“Moon's there?”
“He called me,” Michael lied. “He wouldn't say from where. Are you and Maureen all right?”
”I guess. Thanks to Julie.”
“Is Brendan there?”
“He's on his way to you. He said he's flying up with Johnny. Did Moon know about Arnie Aaronson?”
“Aaronson? The money manager?”
“They murdered him, Michael. He was asking questions for Brendan and they killed him. Marty Hennessy found him. He said he knows who did it. He's looking for a man named Parker.”
Michael's head seemed to swell. The rage that had been building now pounded against his skull.
“So am I, Sheila,” he said softly. “So am I.”
He replaced the phone. He stood for a moment, once again seeing faces in his mind. Parker . . . Hobbs . . . and the Baron Franz Gerhardt Rast. He might not find Parker before Hennessy does but he'll damned well start looking for Rast. Moon says sit tight. Moon says promise me, let me take care of Rast.
Sorry, Moon. Rast is mine.
“Michael?”
He hadn't seen Megan standing there. He had asked her, nicely, to leave. This time he would tell her. Get away from here, Megan. I want you to climb on your boat and sail back to Woods Hole. Better yet, go sail it around the world again. I want you to stay far away from me until—
“Forget it, Michael. No chance.”
Moon looked for his clothing, saw it still on the chair. He scanned the shelves of the treatment room. He saw a box of gauze pads. Satisfied, he leaned his head back on the pillow.
He would need a supply of those pads, he feared, for when he pulled these tubes out. But they could wait. He would rest a while longer until Michael was gone.
Megan.
The boat girl did remind him of his Grandma Lucy. But Megan was different in two ways. One was that, given the choice, she'd rather not know the things she knew. The second was that Megan would fret over what she saw, not sure whether it was fact or fancy or even what it meant. Old Lucy, being not as bright, never troubled herself too much. She knew what she knew and that was the end of it.
Both of them could read a man's heart, though. They could see a thing, and the thing could look bad, and yet they could know that the man doing that thing had no bad in his heart.
Annie Fallon. That was a real bad thing.
How much Megan saw of it, how much she understood of how Annie died, he didn't know. She never asked a single question. He almost wanted to tell her all the same, just so she'd know there was no meanness in it. But she put a hand on him, shook her head as if to say there was no need. He knew, right there, that she'd never speak of that grave again.
He, Moon, had only buried Annie. It was Tom, Michael's father, who killed her.
Annie, that day, the day she found that poisoned Valium, had had enough. She tried to call her mother, say that she and Michael were moving in with her, but Tom kept her from dialing the phone. She started packing bags; Tom tried to stop that as well. He said he'd handle Brunner and Rasmussen. He begged her to give him the chance but she wouldn't have it. She said she was going to go to the police, starting with her cousins, and she tried to use the phone again. Tom ripped it from the wall.
She said if he tried to stop her from leaving she'd scream until the neighbors called the cops. He let her go but he was frantic. He chased after her, caught her in the building's garage just as she was slamming the trunk and tried to wrest the car keys from her. She did scream. She kicked and clawed at him. He dragged her into the car, held her tight, tried to quiet her. He held her until she stopped fighting him.
It was never clear what killed her. There were no marks on her throat, no blood except from Tom's cut lip, no sign he'd used his fists. Likely, she suffocated. Not that it matters.
He sat with her two hours in that lonesome garage. He thought about Michael and what this would do to him. He thought about prison. He thought about taking the car out, onto a highway, and driving it into a bridge abutment so it would look like they died in an accident. But he didn't. Instead he drove over to Jake's house. He needed Jake to tell him what to do. And he needed Jake to know he never meant to kill Annie.
Life turns on little things. If Jake's housekeeper hadn't gone to the dentist about then, if Sheila Doyle hadn't been up in Boston visiting kin, Jake wouldn't have had much choice but to call the police. As it was, he checked to see if Annie was dead, saw she was, then called Doyle over and they listened to Tom's story. It was Doyle who asked if anyone had seen or heard them fighting, if anyone had walked through that garage and saw him sitting there. Tom said he didn't think so.
Jake saw where Doyle was headed. It was taking an awful chance because there was no telling whether Tom would be able to handle his part. But he just couldn't see the gain in having Tom go to prison, having Michael grow up knowing that his father killed his mother. They drove Annie down the street to Doyle's house. This wasn't exactly what Doyle had in mind but he had a garage and Jake didn't. This is when Jake called him, Moon, and asked him to come stay with Tom while he, Jake, went to straighten up the apartment and pick Michael up at school.
That afternoon, they thought out what they'd do. Moon had to give Doyle credit. He never would have thought that Doyle would stand up like he did. He could have ended up disbarred. Anyhow, that night, they went and finished their business with Rasmussen. Or thought they had.
That grave they dug for Rasmussen . . . Jake never really intended to bury him in it. He had it in mind all along that they'd use it for Annie. After they made it look like she ran off. They took her up there the next night. They buried her with the crucifix she kept over her bed. That crucifix had been a gift from Jake, blessed byCardinal Spellman himself. To Jake, that seemed the next best thing to consecrated ground.
Jake burned her luggage, purse, jewelry in his furnace. He kept samples of her handwriting. That was Doyle's idea, that letter from Chicago. Doyle forged it, even flew out there to mail it after some time went by. Tom knew it was coming. He knew he was to read it to Michael, let him look but not too closely, then let Michael see him destroy it.
Jake wasn't sure about that part. He thought it would be too hard on Michael. Doyle said it won't be as hard as the truth.
Moon looked up at the clock. It was going on four.
He knew that Michael would be sticking his head in one more time. He closed his eyes. Let Michael see him sleeping. The fact is, he could do with a few hours' rest before he unplugged himself and headed back over to Edgartown.
He moved best at night anyway.
Chapter 40
The next flight to Munich was not until six. The London Concorde left at three. Rast had booked himself on that one. He could make a connection from London and still be safely in Munich by morning. He made this decision within minutes of learning that Parker's office had been raided. And that a dead man had been found.
He too
k only a briefcase. He told the front desk that he'd be out attending meetings. Within the hour, he checked in with British Airways. An hour after that, he was sipping a glass of Beaujolais, looking out at the coast of Massachusetts.
The wine did not calm him. He was seething inside.
Twice now they have done this, he thought. Twice now they have forced him to run. This time, however, the damage could be infinitely greater.
Hobbs unaccounted for. No doubt in a drunken stupor somewhere. Turkel missing, no doubt flown the coop. Parker very probably in custody. The dead man can only be that investigator of Doyle's. And Avery Bellows not taking his calls. He's in conference, they say. No doubt with a good criminal lawyer.
He drained his glass, snapped his fingers for another.
His welcome in Munich might not be the warmest, global communications being what they are, but it would surely be an improvement over anything he might have faced in New York. The German authorities, however, would not dare detain him. He would have to have been accused of spying for the Russian before they would even ask to question him. A civilized country, Germany.
Once there, he would sequester himself at Schloss Scharnhorst. The Countess won't be there. Tomorrow through Wednesday she'll be at her hospital. Wiping the noses of puling children. He'll have those three days to sit down at his computer, have a number of factories dismantled, move some inventories around, and perhaps arrange a few fires of his own.
This will die down. The authorities, once reasoned with, will see that it does. The industry, for that matter, will insist that it does.
But it won't be over for him. Not while that Fallon boy lives. Fallon and that lawyer. Fallon and everyone dear to him. Fallon and that black bastard, Moon.
Johnny G. met Doyle at La Guardia.
Doyle wanted to talk. Johnny said “Not now” because the air taxi to Bridgeport was being held for them and because an FBI tail was about twenty feet behind him. Once aboard, they couldn't talk either, at least not about Lehman-Stone and AdChem, because the plane was packed with Wall Street types who were getting an early start on the holiday weekend.
Johnny knew they were Wall Street because here it was Friday afternoon and they're all still playing with their laptops. They're talking to themselves. They're muttering, “Shit!” or “Way to go!” depending on what chart they called up on their screens. Most of them also had these little microcassette recorders for recording their thoughts and for spying on each others' conversations. Some of those were interesting.
On two occasions during the flight, Johnny heard references to the FDA. The first was in connection with a new lotion, a cure for male impotence, which the Israelis had developed. The second was about a powerful anti-emetic, developed by the Japanese, that prevents nausea in chemotherapy patients. These led to some jokes about limp dicks and barfing but also to the observation that the whole world is beating the shit out of us on R&D, thanks to, as one said, “the fucking FDA and its bullshit rules.”
After the first such comment, Johnny G. leaned to Doyle's ear and said, “Don't get me started on the FDA.” After the second, he said, “Just don't get me started.”
“On my life,” said Doyle. ”I won't.”
Doyle had too much else on his mind. Low on the list but troubling all the same was a call that had come in from that young Boston lawyer. Doyle almost hadn't taken it, being busy at the time with Marty Hennessy. But he did and he learned that Michael's new friend, this Megan Cole, was semi-famous. The lawyer said he hadn't found out much about her personal history yet but she's known to the Massachussetts State Police. It seems she's worked with them on some murders.
She works with the cops? As a psychic, yet? What the hell is she doing with Michael?
They changed planes at Bridgeport.
“Do you know what else stops nausea?” Johnny asked this as they took their seats.
“Marijuana,” Doyle answered distractedly.
Johnny G. nodded. “Family down the street from us,” he said, “has a fifteen-year-old kid with cancer. He's getting chemo. But he's barely back home from the doctor's before he starts heaving his guts out.”
This is as the stewardess served a snack.
“Johnny . . .”
“Just listen to me. So someone tells his father about grass. He figures it's worth a shot so he gets some for his kid. Kid puffs a joint before his next chemo session and this time, right after, the kid's not only not sick but he wants to go to Burger King. True story, Brendan.”
“It has a point?”
“Every doctor knows what grass does for chemo patients. But do you think the FDA would let any of them prescribe it?”
Doyle shrugged.
“They claim other drugs work as well, but the fact is they don't. They also say grass has carcinogens in it. Can you believe that? They're saying don't take it for cancer because you might get cancer.”
Another shrug. “So? The father gets it on the street.”
“The point is why should he have to? The point is why won't they let a doctor give this poor kid a break? You want to hear worse stories?”
“No. You said don't get you started.”
Johnny ignored the reminder. “All over the world, there are good new drugs that work, that keep people from suffering the way my father did.” He turned in his seat for emphasis. “Not only can't you get them here, your doctor isn't even allowed to tell you that they exist. If he does, he gets hammered by the FDA. You didn't know that, did you?”
“Johnny . . .”
“You want to hear a statistic? Eighty percent of all new drugs that are available in this country—and I'm talking miracle drugs now—were available in other countries an average of six years earlier. How many people died waiting, Brendan? How many died not knowing about a drug that could have kept them alive?”
This went on for most of the flight.
The part about how the FDA kills people took ten minutes by itself. Boiled down, Johnny says that the FDA has become a political rats' nest, self-perpetuating, secretive, a powerful bully with standards that are considered absurdly rigorous by every other developed country. We'd be nowhere on AIDS if it wasn't for the French, nowhere on the cancer that killed Rocco if it wasn't for the Japs.
“That Jap drug was there all the time, Brendan, and no one would tell me. Do you hear what I'm saying?”
Doyle began to understand the dynamic here.
The FDA, Johnny went on, does not protect consumers. It protects its own turf. The drug companies don't complain out loud, he says, because the FDA, which is famously vindictive, can shut them down with a word. Or they'll say, “You been talking to reporters? You been bitching about us? Fine. You just bought another two years before we let you sell that new Alzheimer's drug you're so proud of.”
This, he says, is why the drug companies are moving as much of their R&D as possible to Europe and lately to China. The small biotechs have no choice but to do that because they can no longer attract venture capital in this country. They can't afford the hundred grand that the FDA charges everyone, big or small, just to make an application.
All of this, clearly, had come as a recent revelation to Johnny G. But it was hardly a surprise to Doyle. The FDA is, after all, a government agency. It has absolute power over a very rich industry. Regulators, by their nature, cling to such power because once it's gone, they're virtually unemployable in an industry that has grown to detest them. The smart ones know that. They make it while they can and park it in accounts on Grand Cayman.
“Enough,” said Doyle at last. ”I want to know why we're talking about this.”
“Because it makes me crazy. If you saw my father…”
“Johnny, I did see your father. Cut to the chase here.”
He was silent for a moment.
Then, “You're looking to bring down AdChem. Find another way, Brendan.”
“Another way than what?”
“You shorting their stock?”
“Yeah. Isn't Julie
?”
“Big time. Now let me guess. You're going to sit down with a congressman or two, cut them in, and when the time is right they'll blow the whistle, call in the FDA who will then shut down all of AdChem's North American operations and then lean on Germany to shut them down over there. The stock drops like a stone and you get rich.”
Doyle made a face. “You're way ahead of me, Johnny.”
A snort. “Bullshit.”
“Hey! Fuck you, kid. It happens that I'm still on Jake Fallon. I'm on who pays for Jake and after that I'm on who pays for Arnie Aaronson.”
Johnny G. rubbed his chin. He sat back in his seat. After a moment, he gave Doyle's arm a light punch. The punch was a limited apology.
“Anyway,” said Johnny, “Michael won't like doing it that way.”
“What way?”
“Starting a run on their stock. Too many people get burned.”
“You know another way?”
“No.”
“You know a way to keep the FDA out? How do they stay out?”
The Shadow Box Page 33