Richler approached George. “We got wind of two other companies attempting something similar to what Klees’zhoparaprophine became. Neither one of those firms is as reliable and high-minded as we are (if they were, they wouldn’t initiate that field of investigation in the first place), nor as proficient in research. We could sense that the FDA was willing to be a bit lenient where Newcomer drugs were concerned. There was a lot of pressure to get them out on the market, to avoid charges that they were ignoring the new citizenry, and clearly no other drug company knew as much about this issue as we did.
“Which presented us with a dilemma.
“Should we allow a competitor’s inferior product to hit the marketplace and really do damage . . . or should we assume the responsibility ourselves—willingly create the lesser of two evils? You’ve already seen the consequences of bad merchandise.”
“Mr. Richler’s reasoning I understand,” George said to Sotsta. “I still cannot fathom yours. How can you have sanctioned this? Participated?”
To which Sotsta answered, “Maury came to me. Asked. My people, my culture, what I thought. I told him”—again the now-you-see-it-now-you-don’t smile—“not a responsibility I want.”
“And I reminded him that it was my company,” Richler said, “and my decision. But that I preferred to make it based on an informed opinion, not the standards I would choose to impose upon an unfamiliar culture.”
“Suggested to him, this juncture,” Sotsta said, “that of two evils, less is always better than more, yes?” He sighed then. Caught George’s gaze. George did not want to feel compassion . . . but his soul had overridden his head.
“I am sorry. I didn’t know.”
The little scientist gave a shrug as brief as his smiles. “Not possible. Sorries? . . . Pah.” (Pah, George suspected, meaning “unnecessary.”) And then, “Won oot na evin tew vostafless? Eon vernorocina, nos debah, u a heure.”
How do I live with myself? One minute, my brother, at a time.
The dog, restless now, looked up at Sotsta, who cupped its face in his hands and cooed, “Yes, yes, yes.” Then he turned his attention to George and Matt again, saying sheepishly, “Animal test subjects. Not supposed to give them names, lest you get attached. Dog, I called this one. Then Dogger, because he is more like a dog than I am. Joke, that. Suddenly he responds to it. By default it has become a name. Dogger.” He patted the animal’s head. “Little dangers in any useful endeavor.”
He swiveled his chair around then and wheeled himself back to where he had been when they found him.
They followed Richler out of the animal research lab. Nobody spoke until they reached Richler’s office.
When they entered the office, Max Corigliano was there, as Richler had arranged, and bent out of shape about having been made to wait so long, as Richler had expected. Corigliano claimed he had been about to leave. What was the idea of treating him like this? He had a very important appointment with a client, and he was going to be late. And who the hell were those two guys? An instinct made Matt want to let Richler guide this little scene, and it was an instinct he was able to communicate to George with a glance.
Maury Richler explained that “those two guys” were the police. And that Max could solve his problem about the meeting by calling and canceling. “Use my phone,” he invited. “Blame it on me. Say there was an emergency at work. Mention my name.”
“My book’s at my desk, Maury. ’S where I keep all my numbers.”
“Fair enough. Back to your desk then. I’ll just send Detectives Sikes and Francisco with you.”
“For what? To tap my phone or something?”
“Now why would you say that? No, it’s just they have some questions about you and I want them to see how you do business, overhear your end of the conversation . . . eradicate the doubts.” Richler turned to the detectives. “Max here is one of our crack MSRs.”
“MSRs?” asked Matt.
“Medical Service Representatives. You might think of him as a field operative. He’s one of the fellows who establishes a link between the company and the community pharmaceutical professionals.”
“A salesman,” George extrapolated.
“More than that, really. What we call a detail man, because he provides information and data along with product. His specialty is the independent drugstore. And he’s damned fine at what he does.” Looking at Corigliano, Richler said, “Max, I want you to show them.”
“Come on, Maury, you’re makin’ me self-conscious here.”
Matt’s ears picked up the lilt of the street Italian in Max’s voice. The cadences were subdued in these surroundings, but Matt imagined that in the pizzeria, Corigliano could be a real paisan.
“Nonsense,” said Richler. “You could sell aspirin to the Bayer boys. Show these guys your mettle. And remember, mention my name to the client.”
“I, uhh, don’t think it would help a lot, Maur.”
“For an independent druggist to know that the head of the company is himself abjectly apologetic for your absence? I’m not a salesman, but even I know that’s sound business policy.”
“It is, in theory, but I make it a practice never to put the blame off on others, you know? My clients, my responsibility. They respect that.”
Richler took this in. Then said, “You know what? You’re right. I’ll call. Get me that number. We should earn some points with the druggist for that.”
“Maury, I can finesse my own accounts, hah? Whatta we doin’ here?”
And now Matt heard something else in Corigliano’s voice. Guilt.
“I want the druggist’s name, Max.”
“Maury, he’s a liddle guy, an indie, not worth your time.”
And now Matt spoke. “Like Bob Sled?”
Max’s eyes started to dart from face to face suspiciously. “What is this?”
And George stepped forward. “Is Anna Maria Corigliano your mother?”
“Yeah, she’s my mother, what’s that got—”
And he stopped speaking. Just like that, stopped. His legs seemed to go weak. He stumbled for a nearby chair, lowered himself into it, held his head.
“Interesting question to get him so upset,” Richler commented dryly. “You want to explain the dynamic to me?”
“His car is registered under his mother’s name,” George offered. “When we arrived here, we knew the name of the legal owner, but not his name. Learning from your security guard that the last names were identical suggested to us a certain . . . familiar refrain.”
“It’s a drug runner’s trick,” Matt added. “If the car you use isn’t registered in your name, you’re not legally liable for anything found in it during a search.”
“Like bad Stabilite,” George elaborated, pointedly directing the words at Corigliano.
“Moms are especially popular, bless their hearts,” Matt added grimly.
“Max,” said Richler patiently, “if these gentlemen were authorized to search your mother’s car—would they find what they’re talking about?”
“This,” Corigliano said, wiping a hand over his mouth, “is the point where I ask for my lawyer.” He looked at the cops. “Not that you have anything to go on. And not that I’ve done anything. But I’ve got a wife and babies, and I owe it to them to have counsel. Now read me my rights or whatever it is you do for a living. Capice?”
Yeah, Matt thought. A real paisan putz.
Despite Matt’s rising irritation, it was George who tightened the screws.
“We have you on videotape, Mr. Corigliano,” he said softly. “That’s what we have. You and Bob Sled, huddled in conference.”
Matt just managed to stop himself from turning toward George in surprise. Recklessly he added, “And we have your fingerprints on the package of last month’s delivery.”
Max Corigliano’s mouth opened and closed several times, but no words emerged. At length, he turned away. “I knew I wasn’t cut out for this. I told them I wasn’t cut out for this. But they told me they’d
double my salary.”
The three standing men observed the one in the chair for a few heavy moments. Matt broke the silence first. “Just once,” he said, “I’d like to find that someone got involved in a deal like this for a reason other than money.”
“Love? Sex? Patriotism?” George wondered.
“Anything.”
“I’m disappointed in you, Max,” Richler said. “An additional forty thousand dollars is a very cheap price tag for pain and suffering.”
“I’m . . . I’m sorry, Maury. I was thinking of my wife and babies. I didn’t mean to hurt your business. I really didn’t think I would.”
“The business? Max, how about the people?”
“What, did I take food from someone’s mouth, what?”
And for the second time that day, Matt was amazed at the blithe ignorance of key players in this filthy little conspiracy. They had no idea that this was about more than money.
“Newcomers have been made sick from the faulty . . . Klees’zhoparaprophine,” George explained, receiving an unconscious nod of approval from Richler.
“Some of them have died,” Matt added. “I don’t know that they could manage wives and babies in addition to the masquerade . . . but I bet they had people who cared about them.”
Corigliano turned ashen. “I swear on my mother’s eyes, I had no idea! When you said ‘bad’ Stabilite before . . . I thought you meant counterfeit.”
“We meant bad, Max,” Matt said.
“Who was it you didn’t want to call in front of us?” Richler asked. “Another one of your distributors?”
Corigliano shook his head morosely. “No, I coulda finessed that. I have to—had—to call the Serovese Corporation.” With a humorless smile, he added, “That’s Serovese with an S not a C and an E not an I. Don’t ask me why, but that’s their little motto.”
“Not particularly revealing, is it?” observed George.
“What was so urgent you couldn’t make the call later?” Matt asked.
“I was supposed to confirm that the old outlets for . . . bad Stabilite . . . are out . . . that the new ones are in place.”
“Why the sudden changes of venue?”
“Not sudden. Been in the works for a while. I asked ’em—said they wanted to keep the product floating, difficult to track.”
Matt started breathing a little easier, and he saw George’s posture relax a bit too. They were sharing the same thought. That maybe—maybe—the investigation hadn’t been compromised after all; that maybe the Serovese Corporation’s strategy was a coincidence of timing.
“Who is your contact at this Serovese Corporation?” George prodded.
“I dunno. Different male voices give me my assignments. They call me at home. Designated times. Machine takes my messages when I report in.”
Matt frowned. “Again with the ‘I don’t know names’ routine. I’m sensing a depressing pattern here, George.”
George nodded. “Apparently the corporate philosophy starts at the top and works downward.” He turned to Max. “How were you first approached?”
“A thousand dollars anonymously appeared in the front seat of my car one day. In an envelope. With a note. If I was interested in more, I should be near a certain phone at a certain time . . .”
“And, of course, you were.”
“I meant to blow them off, but . . . once the money was in my hands, it was as good as spent . . .”
“Do you still have the note? Or the original envelope?”
“Didn’t want to chance it being discovered by my wife or kids so, uhh, no. I got rid of ’em.”
“. . . Naturally . . .”
“So you don’t know names,” Matt reiterated, “and you receive your instructions by phone. How do you get your supply of the drug?”
“There’s a—I guess you’d call it a processing plant in Inglewood. I show up at the door, I give a password, they make with a countersign, it’s all very ‘I Spy.’ Then someone I never see gives me the supplies. And I hand off the take from the previous sales.”
“Holding back your prearranged fee, of course.”
Corigliano nodded.
“Tell me something,” Matt said. “ ’Twixt thee and me. Ever skim off a little extra?”
“Thought about it, to tell you the truth. Then decided it wasn’t worth that kind of trouble. Not with these guys. You gotta remember, breaking into my car was their idea of a friendly overture.”
“Honor among thieves,” observed George, getting an old saying right for a change.
“Uh huh,” agreed Matt ironically, and turned his attention back to the pathetic detail man. “Now, the location of this ‘processing plant’ . . . Where in Inglewood we talking?”
“Around the intersection of Centinela and West Florence.”
“That near the Inglewood Park Cemetery?”
“Yeah.”
“Apt,” said George.
“Why,” asked Richler, “did they pick you to deliver for them?”
“I was already in so deep. I’d—” He had clearly hoped to avoid this. “I was the one gave ’em the formula in the first place . . . They, uhh . . . said they wanted to get a head start on their profits and on serving the public with a reliable generic brand. They did say reliable.”
“Reliable,” Richler repeated. Then he asked slowly, “Do you know why Klees’zhoparaprophine has such a stiff customer price tag?”
Corigliano didn’t answer. He couldn’t.
“Because what we charge is only slightly more than it costs to make,” Richler continued, answering his own question. “There is no generic price tag. If there were one, it’d be what we’re charging. The drug is so morally ambiguous that my policy has been not to take any more of a profit than absolutely necessary to pay the bills and recoup the cost of supplies. Do you understand what I’m telling you, Max? This Serovese Corporation is using substitute ingredients. They’re not even copying, they’re approximating. That’s the only way they can sell cheaper. You can’t do that with this drug.”
“What did you mean,” George queried Max, “when you said the Serovese Corporation wanted to get a head start on their profits?”
“The Feds govern the life of a patent on any new medicine.” Corigliano sighed. “Patent can’t be held for more than seven years. After that, you have to make your research public.”
“Although we might hold ours for twelve,” Richler added. “If you can prove that a drug caters to a limited clientele and can only see a below-average financial return, you get an extended patent under what’s called the Orphan Drug Act.”
“Seven to twelve years of this garbage on the marketplace,” Matt marveled.
“Does this mean the Serovese Corporation is itself a legitimate manufacturer of generic drugs?” George wondered.
“Oh, please,” said Richler.
“Sounds like some kind of holding company to me,” Matt mused. “With that name, Serovese . . . maybe even a Mafia holding company. Am I warm, Max?”
Corigliano shrugged miserably.
“Let’s find out,” said George. “Mr. Corigliano, is it too late to call in your report without alerting them that something’s amiss?”
Max checked his watch. “Tough to know with an answering machine. And I’ve never been late before. But then again, the delay’s only ten, fifteen minutes.”
“Call them, then. Don’t give them any indication that you’ve been exposed. My partner and I will listen on an extension.”
“Only if it means I can cut some kind of a deal,” Max Corigliano insisted. It was his last card, and he intended to play it.
Matt shook his head and spoke under his breath, but audibly enough. “It’s always money. And they always try to bargain.”
Richler spoke in the soft, terrifying tones of a powerful man who is powerfully angry.
“Here’s the deal, Max. You cooperate and I won’t press charges; you’re in enough trouble with state and federal law as it is. I’ll even do what I can
, within reason, to see that your family keeps body and soul together, until they can function without you.” A beat. “You don’t cooperate, and what I put you through will make the Wrath of God seem like a paid vacation. Are we clear?”
Max placed the call with almost comic alacrity. As he’d described, there was nothing on the other end of the line but an answering machine, and at that, one whose outgoing message was so noncommittal it didn’t even identify itself. The call provided Matt and George with no new information, but at least it might have bought them some time. And they had the phone number.
When he hung up, Corigliano asked Sikes, “What now?”
And Sikes, trying not to enjoy his revenge too much, said, “I think we better read you your rights. Or whatever it is we do for a living.”
They led Max Corigliano, handcuffed, to their cruiser. Routinely putting a hand to the detail man’s head, George guided him into the backseat and closed the door.
Quietly, so as not to be heard by their prisoner through the windows, Matt said, “Nice bluff in there. ‘We have you on videotape.’ Very nice.”
“Not a lie, Matthew. We just don’t know how useful the tape will be. On the other hand, ‘The fingerprints on last month’s package’ . . .”
“Yeah, that was a lie.”
“Hardly necessary. Gelding the filly, if you ask me.”
“Gilding the lily. Couldn’t let you have all the fun.”
After a moment, George said, “It’s been an educational day, hasn’t it?”
Matt felt fine little droplets of water on his skin. He looked up. Drizzle landed in his eyes, and he squinted against the darkening sky. It had started to rain.
“It’s not over,” he said.
C H A P T E R 1 7
FRIENDS DON’T STAY angry with friends for very long. And the fact was, Emily would have to have done much worse than she had in order to lose the friendship of Jill Molaskey.
True enough, when Emily approached Jill between classes, the reception she got was a little frosty—to be expected, and Emily had geared herself up for it—but Jill didn’t take much convincing to believe that Emily was genuinely contrite. And when Emily told Jill what she had in mind, Jill even volunteered to be a co-conspirator.
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